Women who have met the love of their life after a lot of difficulty, could you share what, if anything, changed in your life shortly before you met them?

11 comments

1. I gave up trying. It worked out by chance that as I was leaving OkCupid after so much abuse that he messaged me. I had spent years there and wasted many hours talking people to find out that I was “the back up” until they found someone better. It was crushing to always be “not good enough” to be even given the dignity of being told “no” – just ghost. I was never attractive enough to be someone’s public date, but enough to waste my time. Men felt like they could comment on my body at random and would send me messages telling me that I’d be beautiful if I lost weight etc. I have self-esteem, but it takes a lot to not let that hurt you.

   It’s so easy to get caught up with online dating as a measure of your worth and the whole “women have a million options but some are creepers but good men always get rejected” is such bullshit. But it was hard watching my friends move on, date, and get married while I was the “fat friend.” My friends were/are amazing to me, of course, but I was never attractive next to them.

   One night, I decided to say “fuck it.” And as I moved the mouse to “delete,” I got a “hello there” from my now-husband who thinks I’m the most beautiful person who ever existed, inside and out. Worth the wait.

2. First time I was 19, and I simply stopped looking. I had an abusive ex before him and finally decided to live my life for myself, and spend some time learning to enjoy being alone. Then I met my husband, who loved me for the true me and we lived happily ever after for ten years. Then he passed away.

   Second time now I’m 30, I was obviously grieving the loss of my husband, and once again trying to learn how to at least be ok with being alone again, which comes with rediscovering your personality as an individual instead of one half of a whole (I do have young kids, but they don’t offer the same kind of companionship). I made a friend with a man who had also lost his wife and we’ve fallen in love. Although we aren’t married or anything, I do believe it will happen. I consider myself to be so fortunate to have experienced the unconditional love of two amazing men in my lifetime, even though that comes with an unimaginable loss.

   The take away I suppose, is that to be open to real love, you have to be confident in who you are as a person. And understand that the right person will love you exactly as you are.

3. I took accountability for myself, my life, all my nonsense. I became the kind of woman worthy of the type of man I wanted. And I got him.

4. Nothing significant happened or changed, I’d been using OLD for years and it never worked out, so I gave up trying to find someone. Shortly after that I went out drinking with friends and he was just there, I already knew him but had never spoken to him much before.

5. Stopped dating just anyone. Decided I was only going to give certain people the time of day. This closed doors to the wrong ones, and allowed the door to open for the right one.

6. How can you tell if you’ve met the love of your life? Genuinely asking. What does it feel like? Not being funny I really want to know if it’s a feeling or logic or I don’t know. I just kind of always thought folks meet someone they love and settle down. Not sure how to explain what I’m saying.

7. I haven’t met that one yet. The weird thing is, I have a gut feeling I will, and that he’s out there.

   The problem now though is that I am still struggling really hard with the emotional scars from past relationships. I know for a fact I’m not going to open the doors to allow this special person to come into my life, unless I close the other ones (as another post mentioned as well). I know this. I’m just having a really hard time doing it.

   I think what is helping a bit is that I’m fortifying boundaries. I grew up with the mantra that you must be nice to everyone. I can’t do that anymore, because it just causes hurt. So, I will cut people out of my life if they are not bringing anything significant to the table. It doesn’t matter. If you are a friend but are overstepping or not respecting my boundaries, you are gone. If you treat me like a bag of shit, ignore me, etc., I’ll do the same to you. I won’t take the higher road. I know this sounds a little bit crass, but it’s something I think I need to do in order to get to the other side.

8. The last breakup I had a little over 8 months before I met my husband made me take a long hard look at myself and what I wanted and needed in a partner. Up until then, I had been dating and getting involved with men who honestly where not worthy of my time and energy.

   I pulled back from dating, worked on myself, my life, concentrated on my work and friends and completely forgot about men for a time. The day I was introduced to my now husband, I was not looking for anything because I was perfectly happy in the life I had created, I was a whole person on my own and didn’t need anyone to complete me.

   Come to find out, when you are whole, healthy and happy on your own, you will draw to you people who are the same. And this combination is powerful and can lead to a healthy stable and mature relationship. My husband is awesome, we are equals in what we bring to our relationship and marriage. Had I not come to a full stop and done the work on myself, I doubt I’d be where I’m at today.

9. I stopped trying to force myself to be straight. My ex was privy to my queer awakening and ultimately came out to me as polyamorous. While I’ve had loved ones doubt their intentions in suggesting we try it, in the end my ex gave me a gift in doing so and I’ll always be grateful for it. Despite feeling like I wasn’t worthy of one partner, let alone two, I genuinely did my best to be good to the both of them. In my mind, even if they did end up dumping me and being better off with each other, I loved them enough to see that as a positive.

   Unfortunately, my ex and I were bad for each other, and in actuality our relationship had always been toxic (and probably doomed). Leaving them was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I found the strength to do it because our new partner revealed to me that *I* was the person who had sacrificed too much. They make me happy in ways I believed genuinely unattainable, and thats just as much the result of my own traumas as it was our ex.

   We’re still together 6 years later, and are now blissfully engaged to our new boyfriend! The healing we found together brought him into our life and the 3 of us are inseparable, and the downright envy of our extended families for how natural and easy our connection is.

10. I lost my dad. The day after he died, I was watching the Olympics with my mom, and she said that she had a friend with a son who was training heavily in gymnastics. He was gay, but she thought we could have a baby together.

    I was so horrified I excused myself and checked my online dating account, that I hadn’t logged into for a few years. My current partner had left me a really sweet message, and here we are, 6 years later.

11. I left an extremely abusive and toxic relationship. I had freedom to do whatever I wanted. I went to therapy to deal with my issues and to better myself. It worked tremendously. Not to say you have to issues to go to therapy, sometimes it’s nice to get stuff of your chest and see your world from someone else’s perspective.

    I was pretty anti men at that time. I avoided them at parties and in general. I wasn’t a party person but I thought go out for once and be sociable. And I met this guy who was friends with my flatmates and my gut told me to talk to him. He was good looking and something told me he was different than your typical northern British lad.

    He was polar opposite and I loved it. I took a different approach to the crush than normal. Instead of being their dream girl and trying to be lady like. I almost tried to convince them I was their worst nightmare by being myself. I wore what I wanted. I said exactly what was on my mind and I told them all the ugly past I had.

    I thought being my authentic self was the nightmare for him but it was the dream girl. We’re still going 3 years later and I can happily say I feel as giddy as the day I met him. Through covid, moving in together, financial hardship and sickness.

    I’m so glad I kept being myself. Instead of pretending to be who I thought they wanted. It saved my mental health.